Peter Kay: I still go to the Co-op for a Tizer

HE HAS just finished a two-year tour that’s played to 1.2 million fans but for comedian Peter Kay, that is just the day job. What really matters to him are the people waiting at home when he has finished entertaining those sell-out crowds.

Peter Kay's feet stay on the ground no matter how popular he becomes []

In a rare interview at a central Manchester hotel, Peter reveals: “I never wanted to be ‘the big I-Am’. I’m actually shy and my salvation is coming home and being normal. My children are still young and I want to be at home with them.

“I made sure that, as often as possible, I was home every night. I wanted to be able to take the children to school in the morning. Doing a gig was just like nipping out for three hours in the evening.

“The fact that I have had so much time to be a dad and to be around my children is brilliant. I will never get this time with them again.”

Despite playing to so many people over the years, Peter, 38, still finds it hard to believe he is Britain’s favourite funny man. He is certainly an unlikely figure to occupy the throne in a profession filled with foul-mouthed stand-ups, toilet humour and sex gags.

If I am popular across the board, from teenagers to pensioners, it’s not because I’m trying to be family-orientated, it’s because my mum vets all my shows!

Peter Kay

You might hear him talking about his childhood penchant for wearing leotards but you will never hear him swearing. “My mum would belt me if I went too near the knuckle!” says Peter.

“If I am popular across the board, from teenagers to pensioners, it’s not because I’m trying to be family-orientated, it’s because my mum vets all my shows! I always get a critique from her and she’s very harsh.

“She says, ‘You shouldn’t say this, you shouldn’t say that. If that woman finds out you said that about her, she’ll never speak to me again. Don’t swear. Take that out!’ And you know what? I always do!”

Despite his fame and the wealth it has brought him, Peter shuns the celebrity scene and manages to live a normal life in his beloved home town of Bolton.

His recent tour featured a record 40 nights at the MEN Arena in Manchester and 15 nights at London’s O2 and was carefully planned so that he could get home most nights, but his fans clearly don’t mind travelling to see him.

Peter’s observational comedy springs from his ability to pick up the absurdities in everyday life, as he proved with his hit TV series Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy’s Road To Nowhere.

He’s also become a best-selling author with two hit books and the last, The Sound of Laughter, holds the record as Britain’s biggest-selling hardback autobiography. Now he has a new one out, The Book That’s More Than Just a Book-Book, in which he muses on the trials of the Friday night “big shop” and teaching his 89-year-old Nana to water ski on the Wii.

His last DVD sold a record-breaking 1.9 million copies and this book is bound to be another runaway success, which is just as well because Peter really can’t be doing with trawling round the country to promote it. He has even turned down lucrative offers to host prime-time Saturday night TV shows so he can stay in Bolton “enjoying hot baths with Simon and Garfunkel”.

“I didn’t want to be away for weeks on end,” says the comedian who has had four number one records including the Comic Relief hit Amarillo. “I would have regretted being stuck in London on the phone to my family every night saying, ‘I’ll be home soon’. That would have outweighed any joy I had doing the show.

“I like to be low-profile and keep my head down. I still go up to the Co-op Late Shop for a bottle of Tizer. Staying in Bolton has been hugely important for me. Every street is a memory or a story for me. I should be able to go to the shops. This is my home. If it all ended tomorrow and I was still in Bolton, I would only have gained, not lost. If I’d wound up in Ipswich, I’d have thought, ‘How did I get here?’ ”

Peter insists that living in Bolton helps his comedy. “When you live a normal life and keep your ears pricked, you hear all sorts of funny things,” he says.

“Sometimes your work can become your life and real life can take a back seat but for me, it’s the other way round; where I live and my family are my life.

“I’ve never been led by money. If I had been doing things for the money, I’d have done five tours by now. I didn’t tour for seven years because I wanted to wait until the children were older. Money is great but you’ve got to be happy. I’ve been tempted but if you do things just for the money you run the risk of not being proud of what you’ve done.

“I have been lucky in that I have been able to say no to things. Even when I started out, if something didn’t feel right, I wouldn’t do it. It had to feel worthwhile. It was never a case of ‘I’ve got to keep my face on TV’ .”

So just why has Peter been so successful then? “People love the idea of having a good laugh and three generations of one family can do that together at my show because they know they won’t feel threatened. My humour isn’t blue. They’re not thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s being so rude and I’m sitting next to my Nan!’ and they can relate to my humour.

“The greatest comedy is a mirror. Look at The Royle Family. People watch it and say, ‘That’s us, that is’. The audience know people just like that. The smallest, apparently mundane details of life are what tickle me, like the fact that you are always left with that tiny sliver of soap and the sticker when you use Imperial Leather.

“Even in big arenas people feel like I’m talking to them individually. It’s a comfort thing. They feel that you’re their friend from home. It seems very safe.

“I’m never nasty about anyone. When I started out comedians wanted to be like Bill Hicks and shock audiences but I like Harry Hill and Reeves and Mortimer; it’s pure silliness but it’s so funny.

“The funniest thing on TV is You’ve Been Framed. You’ll never top the sight of a pensioner falling over at a wedding.”

Peter’s own comedy hero was Ronnie Barker. “I loved him,” he says. “My favourite sitcom was always Porridge. In 2003, I wrote to Ronnie. I got a letter back on headed notepaper from HMP Slade Prison.

“He wrote to me as Fletch. He wrote four pages about how he had stolen the paper when Mr McKay was not looking.

“I had some Phoenix Nights notepaper made and wrote to him as Brian Potter. I sent him a nail file in a Soreen Fruity Malt Loaf.”

The comedians corresponded for years in character and Peter gave a moving eulogy at Ronnie’s memorial service in 2006.

Despite his fame Peter says he never takes success for granted. “I can’t rest on my laurels. There is self-doubt there: ‘Is this going to work? Am I as funny as I think I am?’”

“Most comedians fear one day someone will put a hand on their shoulder and say, ‘You can’t do this. Come back to Netto and stack boxes’. Feeling that you don’t deserve your success drives you.”

Peter says he only has one real regret in his career and that was playing an alien in a Doctor Who episode called Love & Monsters in 2006. He rolls his eyes saying: “I loved making it but when I saw it, I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’m big green lizard running around Cardiff? Is that it?’

“It’s nice to have been in Doctor Who but that is regarded by fans as the worst episode ever.

“In 10 years’ time, I’ll be able to do the Doctor Who conventions and charge people a tenner for a photo!”